The Working Screenwriter

Many thanks to those who have sent in their questions about screenwriting!

Q: How long should it
take me to write an outline?

A: Depending on the
story, mine take anywhere from two weeks to two months to sketch out. Once a
solid outline has been crafted, the actual scriptwriting process usually
proceeds relatively smoothly. Based on my typical writing pace of 2 to 5 hours
per day, I usually crank out a workable first draft in 2-6 weeks. Of course,
subsequent drafts—which lead the way to the final submission draft—could take a
few weeks, to several months longer. But there’s a lot to be said for getting
that first draft done. It’s a real psychological boost to have those 100 pages
of neatly bound text in your hot little hands. Once this first draft is
completed, the subsequent drafts seem far less daunting.

Q: How long should my
outline be?

A: Mine generally run
anywhere from 25-35 pages. (I recently sent a producer a 46-page outline.) But I’d say
nothing less than 15 pages (12 pt. type, single spaced). In my opinion,
anything less than about 15 pages just isn’t detailed enough to do you much
good. But, as always, see what works best for YOU.

Q: Can my script
deviate from the outline?

A: Of course! Changes along
the way are inevitable and welcomed. If I could put numbers on it, I’d say 75%
of my scripts are based on the outline and 25% are wrought from discovery along
the way.

MORE Q & A TO COME--SOON!#

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost
to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

No witches, no warlocks, no vampires. Just a sexy, rollicking story about a guy trying to hit it big in Hollywood.

"A great summer read!"

"A sexy Hollywood tale!"

"It's WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN for the 21st century!"

Check out my book, Q & A: The Working Screenwriter! Interviews with 16 working screenwriters!

Many thanks to those who have sent in their questions about screenwriting. This is the second batch of your questions and my answers. More to come!

Q: I’m always getting writer’s block!
How do I get rid of it?

A: As far as I’m concerned, writer’s
block is nothing more than a form of total, absolute and complete laziness.
Face it, you’re just not willing to sit yourself down, put on your thinking cap
and plumb the depths of your creativity. Sorry to be the one to break it to
you, but that’s what screenwriting is all about. So get used to it.

Do whatever you have to do, but force
yourself into your writing mode every day. Whatever it takes. And believe me,
once you get rolling and ideas are flowing, you’ll wonder what all your
apprehension was about. However, if you still find it near-impossible to park
yourself in front of that keyboard, and/or if you continually have trouble
coming up with ideas, and/or you’d prefer to watch Championship Knitting
on C-SPAN rather than crank out script pages, then this might be the universe
telling you, “Sorry, pal, you’re not a screenwriter.”

"There's no such thing as writer's
block. That was invented by people in California
who couldn't write." - Terry Pratchett

A fellow writer posted the following on
one of the screenwriting boards. I liked what I read (mainly cuz I
wholeheartedly agree with every word of it).Here it is...

I don't believe in writer's block. Most
of the “serious” writers I've known don't, either. I agree with the one who
says, “It's an indulgence of amateurs. When you've got a contract with a
deadline, you either turn in a manuscript or return your advance. You may find
writing difficult and your results unsatisfying, but you do it anyway, because
that’s what professional writers do: they write.” However…

I do believe in the realization that if
your current work is of poor quality it should be abandoned. (Don’t delete
it—the idea may be worthwhile even if the execution isn’t.)

I believe in inadequate preparation.

I believe in inadequate organization,
too.

I believe in writing yourself into a
corner so tight that you either need to start over or abandon it.

I believe in lost enthusiasm for a
particular work.

I believe in lack of focus, in not
knowing what your story’s really about and why these characters should tell it.

I believe in increasing boredom with an
entire genre that’s become too familiar.

I believe in well-crafted characters
you don’t want to spend time with. (And if you don’t, nobody else will,
either.)

I believe in stories that require a
daunting amount of preliminary research before you can write. (“Sure, that’s
it—a police procedural following a serial killer who’s targeting milliners in
1910 Belgium!”)

I believe in shyness and lack of
confidence that makes seeking expert advice or background hideously difficult
or impossible.

I believe in not knowing how to start,
or where to start, or even if you should start.

I believe in finding the need to learn
basic writing mechanics and screenplay format so boring or off-putting that
you’d rather procrastinate than spend the time it takes (which isn’t much for
format).

I believe in concluding that your whole
concept is stupid, immature, derivative, impractical, embarrassing, too
personal, legally actionable, or any of a host of other fatal flaws.

I believe in realizing that you're not
as good as other people—the ones who ought to know, like teachers and fellow
writers—think you are.

I believe in realizing that you're not
as good as you think you are—or ought to be.

I believe in that “what’s-the-use”
attitude after you learn that your first several screenplays are probably going
to be pretty bad regardless of the blood, sweat, and tears you give them.

I believe in the inability of young
writers to write characters well beyond their own age and, regardless of
research, situations well beyond their experiences—and I believe in the
incredible frustration of being young and bursting with ideas that you
shouldn’t tackle yet.

Now, any of those can stop you dead in
your tracks and keep you stopped. The question then becomes: How can you get
started again?

Give yourself permission to write utter
crap. Lousy ideas, poor grammar and spelling, stilted dialogue…Write it anyway.
Nobody has to see it. Written things can be revised or rewritten to improve
them. The blank pages of the “blocked” remain blank.

Move physically. Play a sport, go for a
walk or run, swing on a playground, whatever you like, but get your blood
pumping. When it's racing through your body, the brain gets plenty of
oxygen—and ideas.

Give yourself blocks of unstructured
time when you’re not likely to be sleepy. Find a quiet place, think about your
current writing project, and let your mind wander. Rein it back to the subject
as needed. This can be combined with physical movement—a long walk may be an
idea wellspring!

Play What If…? with what you
see. What if the kid cutting your sandwich suddenly plunged that knife
into the woman at the cash register? What if he merely put caustic
chemicals in the mayonnaise? What if the sandwich and kid are fine, but
you choked, right here at your table? What if you gave half your
sandwich to that lady over there who looks poor? What if she thanked you
for it by giving you something valuable (that she didn't think was worth more
than the sandwich)? What if you sold it and couldn’t find her to give
her any of the money? What if she found you and demanded all of it? What
if...

Write daily, every day, no exceptions,
for a set amount of time. If you can't write, you must remain in your writing
environment for the set amount of time anyway. Your choices are a) write, and
b) don’t write. No games, no internet, no texting, no TV.

Stimulate your mind with new
experiences. If you're a movie fan, see a play or watch a street performance.
Hear live music rather than CDs, or listen to something in a genre you know
nothing about. Eavesdrop on or observe people unlike most of the ones you know.
People-watch (and invent lives for passers-by). Attend a sporting event (any
kind, at any level) where you don't know anyone and watch the crowd rather than
the players.

Upon waking, jot down the surrealistic
snippets of whatever dreams you remember. They don't mean anything, in my
opinion, but the odds are good that they're packed with drama.

Many thanks to those who have sent in their questions about screenwriting. This is the first batch of your questions and my answers. More to come!

Q: I want to write screenplays, but I
don’t know where to begin. What’s the best way to get started?

A: My best advice would be to spend
some time immersing yourself in studying the art, craft, and process of writing
a screenplay. Read a few how-to books (yes, my book Q & A: The Working
Screenwriter would be one excellent choice!), then read a handful of scripts
that have been produced. (Google search “movie screenplays free” and a lot of
great websites will come up.) Also, watch the movies that were made from these
scripts. Then, re-read some (or all) of these scripts. But just don’t read
them, study them. By this point in time, you should have absorbed enough
information to give you a good push toward starting your first script. Finally,
sit your rear end down in a chair—and write. No, I’m not going to tell you to
write an outline (more on this later), and I’m not going to tell you to write
on a computer, or with pen and pad. Some things you’ll have to figure out
for yourself. Trial and error. Learn from your mistakes. Discover what works
for you and what doesn’t for you.

DO THE WORK. It’s the only way you’ll
truly learn.

Next, you need to slog your way through
the first draft of a script. Any script. Any genre. Just get that first draft
done. Don’t worry about getting it perfect. (As a famous writer once said,
“Don’t get it right, just write.”)

When this draft is completed, give it
to three or four trusted, intelligent friends and get some opinions. Find out
what worked for them and what didn’t.

Did any scenes drag on too long?

Was the dialogue realistic?

Were any of the characters unrealistic or
one-dimensional?

Were they involved in the story?

Armed with this feedback, slog your way
through a rewrite. Again, how you do this is entirely up to you. Figure it out.
Some writers work only on their computer. Some, as I do, always print a clean
copy of their script and attack it with a red pen, then transfer the changes on
the computer version. Maybe this process will work for you and maybe it
won’t—but that’s for you to discover. That’s what screenwriting is all
about—discovery. No two screenwriters have the exact same method. Whatever
works. Don’t get it in your head that you’re writing your first script with the
intent to sell it. The chances of selling any script ain’t high and the chances
of selling the first script you ever write are...well, virtually nil. First
scripts are for learning purposes only. It could take 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 scripts
before you write one that’s saleable. Chances are pretty decent that you’ll
NEVER write a saleable screenplay. Screenwriting is both an art and a craft and
not everyone is equipped to be an artist or a craftsman. I wish I could draw
pictures, but I can’t. I can barely scratch out a decent stick figure. But
that’s life. Problem is, screenwriting has become the new sporting event and
everyone’s jumping onto the field. Everyone’s got a computer, everyone can get
a scriptwriting program, and everyone has seen a movie and said, “I could write
a better movie than that!” Can you?

So, give this screenwriting thing your
best shot—work your rear end off and write, write, write...and see where your
journey takes you.

Q: How long should it take me to write
a feature-length screenplay?

A: Somebody once said, "It takes
as long as it takes—and not a moment longer." For the most part, I’d
agree. But, if you're taking two years to complete just one screenplay, I think
there's a problem. (However, if you've turned out something akin to Gone
with the Wind or Raiders of the Lost Ark, at the end of those two
years, then it was time very well spent!) Also, if you're writing a spec that
nobody is actually waiting to read, then taking your sweet time is fine. But,
if you get an assignment (i.e., work-for-hire) and if a producer gives you a
deadline to meet ("I need the new draft by 5PM tomorrow!"), then the leisurely pace you've
established for yourself will be unacceptable. So, the upshot here is that it’s
good to be able to work quickly and efficiently.

Q: Should I outline my script before
starting the actual screenplay?

A: I’m sure you’ve heard it a bazillion
times before, but I’ll say it again here: It’s like going on a cross-country
trip without a road map. You might—might—end up at the intended destination,
but with the map, you’ll save yourself a lot of gas (not to mention headaches).

Over the last several years, I’ve had
numerous conversations with first-time writers, and many have said, “I’m stuck
on page thirty and don’t know where to go.” I’ll ask them, “You didn’t outline
your script, did you?” Nope, not one of them did. That’s what happens. You get
this great idea, you come up with a solid start, maybe a bit of the second act,
then—BLURP—it just falls apart.

As far as I’m concerned, outlining is
where the real work comes in. It’s where you test-drive the story and determine
if it’ll all work. It’s where you work out all the pivotal details, where you
track characters, where you plot the twists and turns. It’s where you work out
the subplots and get a feel for timing and flow.

So, yeah, I feel outlining is an
integral part of the screenwriting process and I wouldn’t start any script
without some type of semi-detailed outline.

I always hear people say, “But if I
write an outline, it stifles my creativity.” I’m not sure I understand this.
The outline is where you’re supposed to explore your creativity! Go crazy, try
things, see what’s gonna work. Believe me, it’s far less aggravating making
those inevitable storyline changes and reworking those twists and turns in a
20-page outline, than in a 110-page screenplay.

But go ahead, write your script without
the outline, and see if you can get across the finish line with a coherent
story. It’s very possible that you can. However, if you get in the general
vicinity of page 30 and say, “Um, now what do I do now?” you might want to
consider an outline. (Search this blog for “The Outlining
Process.”)

MORE Q & A TO COME...SOON!!

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost
to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

No witches, no warlocks, no vampires. Just a sexy, rollicking story about a guy trying to hit it big in Hollywood.

"A great summer read!"

"A sexy Hollywood tale!"

"It's WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN for the 21st century!"

Q & A: The Working Screenwriter by Jim Vines! Interviews with 16 working screenwriters!

Do you have questions about the art, craft and business of screenwriting? If so, let me know and I'll post my answers here on my blog. Should I accept a "dollar option" deal?Are screenplay competitions "the" route to success?My screenplay is 150 pages--can I still sell it?Do I REALLY need an agent or manager to sell my script?Pose questions in the comments section below or email me at TheWorkingScreenwriter(at)yahoo.com.

No witches, no warlocks, no vampires. Just a sexy, rollicking story about a guy trying to hit it big in Hollywood.

I'll be starting a new assignment later this month and I'm lookin' to fill my time doing some critiques.

If YOU need a critique on your latest screenplay, I hope you'll get in touch.

I can do a BASIC critique or an IN-DEPTH critique.

Get in touch via email and I'll provide more details and pricing.

Thanks, Jim

TheWorkingScreenwriter(at)Yahoo.com

No witches, no warlocks, no vampires. Just a sexy, rollicking story about a guy trying to hit it big in Hollywood.
"A great summer read!"
"A sexy Hollywood tale!"
"It's WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN for the 21st century!"